Quantum Storytelling

Thanks to Rob Miller’s Now Reading WordPress plugin I now have a Quantum Reading section for the site.

I’m not sure whether or not this makes the ‘Books On Writing‘ section redundant, as quite a few entries from that will be found in the Quantum Reading section. I suppose it’s worth having a separate section for those books so that people don’t have to wade through my dirty laundry list of regular reading!

One further note — it’s interesting what you learn when you actually track your habits like this. I didn’t realize I had read quite so many books last year. I knew it was a lot, but, well, um… the actual number shocks me in just how much I am a dirty little book slut.

Read anything good lately? If anyone else nabs the Now Reading plugin, let me know. I’ll be happy to come take a look at your list.

A final NaNo update…

Only got to about 20K words this year, at which point I ran off into some character development and sketching of story locations which I felt were more important than trying to fudge those things.

Writing is never the hard part for me — I finished my first time last year pretty easily. The hard part is getting what I want out of that writing, and fulfilling my intentions.

To me, in any creative act I pursue, intention is the most important thing. “What is it I am trying to do?” I always ask myself. Along with other questions like, “What am I getting out of this?”

The 2006 NaNo is hardly a loss for what it allowed me to discover; I needed more characters, and not just placeholders. I needed real, well thought out characters that can achieve their potential in the story. I also need maps of my locations, because I’m working in a sci-fi universe, and without those details established, at least for me as the writer, then I don’t really know what I’m doing.

For example, if a battle takes place on the outskirts of one of my sci-fi towns, how far are the people from their homes or ‘living quarters’ as they fight? What are the distances? What is in between them and their homes? Are there any community or business sites nearby? What are the logistics? For me this brings a whole new meaning to the adage “Write what you know.” It turned out I knew a lot less than I thought I did, enough to cripple the drafting process for me.

How has NaNo played out for you? Whether you finished or not, what have you learned?

No, not writer’s block… Lawrence Block — and his pal Donald Westlake. Digging into some pulp that I’ve missed out on. Here’s the summary:

• 361 by Donald Westlake

  Ray Kelly gets out of the airforce and arrives back in NYC to meet his father, only to witness his father’s murder and consequently suffer a horrible car accident in which he loses an eye. It’s your basic revenge story, but a good one at that. 361 ended up being my ideal format example for fiction. At 207 pages, 361 made for a breezy read embellished by the fact that chapters were no more than a few pages each, and something happens on every page. The inciting incident the murder of the hero Ray Kelly’s father which happens by about page eight, and the story is in full gear by page twenty, with a major twist around page one hundred. 361 is a great example of getting to the heart of the story right away — something all writers could bear to study.

• Money for Nothing by Donald Westlake

  Josh Redmont starts receiving $1,000 a month from an unknown source. Seven years later, someone approaches him and tells him that he is now ‘active.’ Josh gets wrapped in a hairy conspiracy and has to find his way out. At 336 pages, Money for Nothing is a bit longer than 361. The extra page padding makes for more loose storytelling than 361, but the plot is still no laggard and if Westlake doesn’t manage to keep the philosophy of “Something happens on every page,” then at least it’s “Something happens in every chapter.”

• The Sins of the Fathers by Lawrence Block

  A prostitute is found dead and her stepfather hires Matthew Scudder to find out more about the estranged step-daughter. Things are complicated by the suicide of her supposed killer. As Scudder learns more about the estranged daughter-become-prostitute, he gets closer to solving the crime itself even though it’s not what he was paid to do. This is the first novel in Lawrence Block’s Matthew Scudder series. It was a very solid mystery. There seems to be a lot less action than in Westlake’s novels, but half the fun is following Scudder around in his quest to find things out for his clients. Another example of blissful brevity. At 180 pages (my version), you can read The Sins of the Father in a single night.

• In the Midst of Death by Lawrence Block
  
  A cop testifying on police corruption is framed for murder and Scudder must clear his name. Along the way he discovers leads which bring him to the real killer. Another short and delicious book. Not quite as good as The Sins of the Father, for the mystery is a bit more muddled and the ending lacks some resolution. But I guess this series is more about Matthew Scudder’s alchoholic journey through the seedy underbelly of New York City.

With exception of Money for Nothing, these represent both Westlake’s and Block’s earlier novels. Their later novels appear to be a lot longer. I wonder what happened? While longer might equal better from the perspective of the publisher, to me it represents bloat and excess.

Have you read any great short novels or novellas lately?